homing

homing, ability of certain animals to return to a given place when displaced from it, often over great distances. The major navigational clues used by homing animals seem to be the same as those used in migration (Sun angle, star patterns, Earth’s magnetic field, etc.), but homing may occur in any compass direction and at any season.

Most of the best-known examples of strong homing ability are among birds, particularly racing, or homing, pigeons. Many other birds, especially seabirds and also swallows, are known to have equal or better homing abilities. A Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus), transported in a closed container to a point about 5,500 km (3,400 miles) from its nest, returned to the nest in 12 1/2 days.

Non-avian animals that have homing abilities include some species of reptiles and fishes. When female loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) emerge from their shells, they imprint on the unique magnetic field signature of the beach on which they hatched and can navigate back to it as adults to lay eggs of their own. In addition, experimental studies have shown that several species of salmon can navigate back to their spawning streams by using their olfactory senses to find the unique chemical signature of the waterway, and juvenile sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka), like loggerhead sea turtles, also appear to navigate using magnetic fields, from the ocean back to their spawning streams.